A CHANGE in the way crime is recorded has shown an apparent 6.5% leap in the number of offences committed in North Wales over the past year.

Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom was upbeat about the figures and blamed the change in recording along with a commitment to tackle anti-social behaviour.

A total of 53,469 crimes were recorded, a rise of 3,280 in 2006/07.

“The increase can be attributed entirely to the high recording of low-level crime, principally common assault and harassment,” he said in a report to next week’s meeting of the police authority’s performance review committee.

At the same time, detection rates for all crimes rose by 17.6pc to 47.8pc, well above the target set by the force.

Mr Brunstrom said the force rose to the challenge posed by the new recording systems and the detection rates were better than expected.

“The force has also continued to tackle not only serious crime but, at the other end of the scale, anti-social behaviour. Because of these factors, the force does not regard the increase in recorded crime as a failure,” he said.

“North Wales Police is still one of the top performing forces in England and Wales, continuing to improve the quality of life for the people who visit, work and live in North Wales.”

The region continues to have one of the lowest rates of recorded domestic burglaries with 4.3 per 1,000 households, and of those 31.2% were detected.

While the number of woundings dropped by 13.1% to 5,447 and robberies were down 7.6%, common assault offences soared by 62.4% and harassment incidents by 63.6%.

The North Wales force is top of the league table for England and Wales for detecting these less serious offences.

The force’s target to charge or caution 10% more people with supplying Class A drugs was not met, but the chief constable said that matching the 2005/06 figure was in itself an achievement because of the excellent performance that year.

A bid to reduce the number of hours lost through sickness has also paid off. Savings of #451,829 were made by cutting the time lost by police officers and #170,223 by support staff.